


Lover's Desire

by enjolraspermittedit



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Mortal, F/M, Fluff, Hades is clueless, No Incest, Touch-Starved Hades, oblivious hades
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-08 23:20:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19877752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolraspermittedit/pseuds/enjolraspermittedit
Summary: An AU in which Hades and Persephone are both livin' it up on top as humans.





	Lover's Desire

Persephone was tending to the garden, as she did every day. She was so invested in her work, in fact, that she barely even noticed the three young puppies that had suddenly ran up to her. She laughed as the dogs jumped on her, nearly knocking her over.

“Sorry!” a deep voice said. “They’re a bit out of control.”

She looked up to see a man dressed in an all black outfit and sunglasses. He was desperately trying to pull all of the dogs back.

“Oh, it’s fine!” she assured him. “They’re really cute. What are their names?”

“They’re all Cerberus. I realized that I’d never be able to tell them apart, so they all have the same name.”

“They’re absolutely precious. And what’s your name?”

“I’m Hades. You?”

“Persephone.”

“That is a beautiful name,” Hades said, before he could stop himself.

“Thank you! I chose it myself, actually.”

Hades smiled at her, just barely, then he looked around at the garden. He wasn’t quite sure how to tell Persephone how impressed he felt, or if he should even say it all. He awkwardly coughed, then asked, “Did you plant everything here yourself? It looks fantastic.”

Persephone shook her head. “No, I worked on it with my mothers. It means a lot that you like it, we put a lot of effort into it.”

“I can tell,” Hades said, smiling at her properly this time.

She took a few steps closer to him, smiling back. “By the way, Hades...you look very hot.”

“Oh, I’m not,” he said. “Really. My jacket isn’t anywhere near as heavy as it looks, and I have a high tolerance for heat.”

“That- that wasn’t what I meant-”

 _Of course._ Hades blushed then, and he was glad that his sunglasses completely hid his eyes, which were surely showing emotions right now. He looked down at his feet and choked out an apology. “Sorry, I didn’t...In any case, thank you. You, um, you also look magnificent.”

“A lie. I’m covered in dirt.”

“No. Not a lie,” Hades insisted, still blushing. “Do you want to walk the dogs with me? I don’t want to take you away from your work, but if you want to...?”

“I will.” Persephone reached over to grab his hand, the one that wasn’t holding the dog leashes. Hades jerked back, questioning for a few seconds, and then he took her hand. “Sorry,” he mumbled again. No one had ever held his hand before, or even shown any affection towards him in general, and now this absolutely gorgeous woman was doing just that. _And_ calling him hot on top of that.

“Ain’t nothin for you to apologize for,” Persephone assured him. “So, do you live in town? I’ve been here my whole life.”

“Yeah, me too. My whole family lives here, but luckily I managed to move out of their house. They were all driving me mad. But we’ve all been here forever.”

“Then how come I haven’t seen you around here before?” Persephone’s tone was light, teasing, but she was asking the question with all of her heart. This handsome man with the adorable dogs had lived here his whole life, and she’d never met him? Didn’t seem quite fair to her.

“I don’t go out much. I only just adopted Cerberus a few days ago, and so I went outside to walk them. Otherwise I just stay inside, as there isn’t much need for me to leave my house.” 

“Wrong! There wasn’t much need for you to leave _before._ But now you’ve got the dogs, and you know me,” Persephone laughed. If he was too clueless to flirt with her, she’d have to do it for him.

“Well, yes, that too,” Hades said. He wasn’t sure how serious Persephone was being, but he meant it - he’d be very happy to see her everyday.

The two of them walked Cerberus in silence. Hades always preferred the quiet, but he didn’t know if it was good right now. Would Persephone think of him as rude? Was he supposed to be talking to her? What would he talk about? Not himself. Should he ask Persephone about her own self? He didn’t want to be weird, but he was so curious about her. Persephone didn’t seem to hate the silence. Or did she? Would she get mad at him if he talked to her? Most people didn’t enjoy talking to him. Why would she? Why _did_ she?

“Are you okay? You seem tense.” Her voice broke the silence, as well as Hades’s stream of thoughts. Okay, clearly she was okay with talking, right? Hades wasn’t sure how to answer. He always told people that he was fine when he wasn’t, but he’d be willing to tell Persephone the truth. He just didn’t know the answer. Was he okay? Sure, but he was terrified of saying or doing something horrible, or stupid, or horribly stupid. Persephone would lose interest and he _definitely_ wouldn’t be okay then.

“I’m fine! Just…” he paused. He had no idea what to say. He had no idea how to talk to people about anything. “Just not very good at talking to people." It was the truth, and it wasn’t a strange thing to say, nor did it reveal too much about him (he hoped). 

Persephone certainly didn’t seem to mind. “I understand.” She was outgoing, but she didn’t care that Hades wasn’t. It was charming.

“My brothers are much better at socializing than I am. People pay more attention to them, and they’re also less awkward.”

“You do realize that your awkwardness doesn’t bother me, right? You’re wonderful...even if other people don’t talk to you enough to know that. You deserve as much attention as your brothers get.”

“I don’t particularly like attention, though. I isolate myself.” It felt like a true statement, but the actual truth was that Hades had no clue if his lack of interest in people came from others’ lack of interest in him, or vice versa. 

“Hmm. In that case, you’d better learn to love attention, at least from me. ‘Cause I have no plans to ever leave you alone.”

Hades froze at that. He was more than okay with Persephone’s attention, but if she was serious and actually wanted to talk to him all the time, wouldn’t she eventually grow bored of him? Wouldn’t she realize his flaws, his flaws that he was simultaneously afraid to admit to himself and all too aware of? Wouldn’t she leave for someone better?

“I haven’t made you uncomfortable, have I?” she asked. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’ll leave you alone if you need me to. I was joking around.”

“No!” _Fuck._ He’d already messed up and made her feel bad. Couldn’t he do anything right? “No. It’s fine. I’m worried that I’ll scare you off, that’s all.” He’d ruined everything. The one time he actually was able to find someone who took interest in him, he’d gone and screwed it up. Maybe isolating himself forever really was the best option. But to his surprise, Persephone still wasn’t bothered.

“You don’t scare me off. You haven’t done anything wrong yet,” she promised him.

Hades just nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak again. Not yet. Now that he knew that Persephone didn’t hate the silence (nor did she hate him) he almost felt alright.

“I should probably be taking the dogs back home soon,” he said eventually. 

Persephone frowned. “So I can’t see you anymore?”

“Uh, you can walk them back home with me, unless you need to be home...I don’t live too far away but I’d hate to keep you too long.” _Well, I’d love to actually, but I don’t want to say the wrong thing._

“Sounds great to me. Can we just stop by my house first and let my moms know? You can come in and meet them if you’d like to.”

“No problem.” Hades was sure that Persephone’s moms would hate him, but he’d feel awful if he turned down her request. He felt less than great on the walk to her house, but at least he knew better than to show that. He was grateful for his ability to hide his emotions. 

He kept his cool as they stepped inside Persephone’s house. He stood still, barely even daring to look around. 

“Persephone? Is that you?” a voice called from another room.

“Yeah, but it’s not just me. I was just going to take a quick walk with my friend, Hades.”

On the last word of the sentence, a woman came rushing into the front room that Hades and Persephone were standing in. A woman that looked very much like an older version of Persephone stood in the doorway.

Persephone smiled at her. “Mama, this is Hades and his dogs Cerberus. He was walking them outside our house and we were just going to take them back to his place real quick.”

The woman frowned, glancing at Hades. “And he’s Hades?” Her words were directed at her daughter, even though she was staring directly at the strange man in her home.

“Yes, do you know him?” Persephone asked.

“No. But I damn well know of Zeus.” She glared at Hades, although Persephone had no idea who Zeus was.

“Most people do know him.” All three people in the room were surprised to hear that Hades’s tone was calm. “He’s a stupid fuckboy. I hardly talk to him, or anyone in my family for that matter if it can be prevented.”

Persephone’s mom didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then she sighed. “Fine. But, Hades, if you ever do anything to hurt my daughter, I’ll murder you in cold blood.” Then she smiled. “Have fun! Precious dogs, by the way.” She waved goodbye to Cerberus and Persephone, then she stepped into the kitchen again.

“What the hell was that about?” Persephone asked once they were outside.

“What’s your mother’s name?” Hades shot back, instead of answering the question. As bad as the interaction had been, he was relieved that he was hated for his family rather than himself.

“The one that you talked to is Demeter. Any idea what happened?”

“Maybe. Do you have any siblings? I’m willing to bet that Zeus - that’s my brother, as you can probably guess - I’m willing to bet that he broke someone’s heart.”

“Uh, yeah, I have a few siblings.” She started listing names. “There’s Dionysus, Aphrodite-”

“That’s it. Aphrodite is his ex.”

“I barely even remember that,” Persephone admitted. “She's completely over him now, but my mother is very protective of her children and she holds a lot of grudges.”

“At least she cares about you all. Even if it’ll be awful for me.”

“Don’t worry, she’ll come around eventually. I’ll help to prove to her how amazing you are.” Persephone reached out to grab his hand, and this time Hades didn’t question it, and they walked in peace. The silence didn't bother Hades this time around, and he supposed it didn't bother Persephone either. 

About halfway back to Hades's house, Persephone saw a flower blooming in the grass. "Hades, look, it's exactly like the one I have in my hair!" She reached down and pulled it out of the ground, then gently placed it behind Hades's ear. "Now we can match." 

The rest of the walk was uneventful. Hades made no effort to remove the flower from his hair, and he kept glancing over to look at Persephone. He was almost disappointed when they got back to his house. “Do you want to stay for awhile?” he asked.

“Sure. But not too long. We need to be on my mom’s good side, remember?” She reached down to pet Cerberus as Hades unlocked the door to his house.

“I’m not much of a host. But is there anything that you’d like?” Hades asked, leading her inside.

“No thank you,” Persephone said. “Can I just sit down?”

“Make yourself at home.” Hades disappeared into the kitchen then, and Persephone sat down on the couch.

She wasn’t sure what she had expected from Hades’s house, but she did like what she saw. It had an almost Gothic feel, skulls and dark-colored furniture everywhere. Her only complaint was that it was a bit too hot to handle, but then again, so was Hades himself. 

Hades returned then, holding a pomegranate. “I know you said that you don’t want anything but I’m hungry and it’d be rude to not share.” He handed her half of the fruit, keeping the other half for himself.

“Thank you, you’re sweet.”

“You are the only person who would ever even consider describing me that way.”

Persephone looked over at him, taking a bite out of the pomegranate. “Really?”

“Yes, really! Most would describe me as cold instead. I intimidate a lot of people.”

Persephone thought for a moment, then she grinned at him. “Well, what if I want you to...intimi _date_ me?”

“Intimi...date?”

“Yes.”

“Date?”

“Yes.”

A million thoughts flashed through Hades’s head, most of them being, _why?_ She barely knew him. She’d leave, surely. This was an impulsive decision that she’d regret. It wouldn’t be long before she’d leave him for someone better, someone less emotionally stunted. But for now…

“I would love that!” He hardly recognized his own voice. He sounded too happy.

“I was starting to think that you would never take the hint,” Persephone teased. She leaned in to give Hades a quick kiss, causing him to freeze up once more. “Sorry, should I have asked first?” she said, worried again that she had made him uncomfortable.

He shook his head. “You’re alright. It’s not you at all. You’ve probably guessed that I’ve never had a relationship before, right?”

“Really?" Persephone couldn’t stop the shock in her voice. She tried to backtrack. “Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. It just surprised me. As much as you talk about isolating yourself and scaring people away, I still can’t comprehend that no one’s ever fallen for you.” She briefly worried that her statement was too blunt, but Hades took no offense.

“Well, believe it. You’re the first.” And he’d never felt insecure about that before, but now he did. People had to lack interest for a reason. But then again...for now, he had her. So he kissed her again, trying to focus on nothing other than Persephone and the taste of the pomegranate on both of their lips.

Persephone broke away suddenly, before either of them wanted her to. “I really gotta get home before mama hunts us down and kills us both. But I’ll see you tomorrow.” And when she left, Hades was alone, but for once he wasn’t lonely.

**Author's Note:**

> I literally have no idea what I'm doing with this one. Also, you probably noticed that I played around A LOT with Persephone's/Zeus's families and pretty much completely disregarded Greek Myth canon. That's because incest is not a win-cest!! Zeus fucked everyone and it is literally impossible to stick with canon and not have all the lovers be related in some way.  
> This whole thing is so dumb, but honestly I'm having a great time because I just want them to be happy and fluffy and IN LOVE.
> 
> If you liked this you should check out my other social media.  
> Tumblr - rated-r-for-grantaire/hadsephone  
> Twitter - ButchHades  
> Youtube - Lumina Pontmercy / Sky T.  
> Instagram - thisbrightstar


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